scanning small pics, for good output

[Bruce]

Say you have a 4 by 5 pic or smaller, when it is scanned
what size should you increase it too?
to make sure when it is projected on a big screen
that it will still have the quality, or does it matter.
Shoudl it be also 100 , 150, 300 dpi?
thanks

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Don't worry about DPI, just worry about P (pixels, which is actual the d
for dots in DPI). You want your picture to be the same number of pixels
as your computer screen/projector. In many cases, that is going to be
1024 x 768. It doesn't matter how big the screen is, so you can ignore I
(inches). With that said, if the picture is 5 inches wide, then scanning
at 205 DPI will get you a picture in the computer that is about 1024
pixels across (5 x 205 = 1025). But if your picture is smaller, you will
want higher DPI to get to the magical 1024. Scanning at higher resolution
will not improve the quality of your picture because if the computer can
only display 1024 x 768, that is all that will be displayed, regardless
of how big (in physical size) the screen is.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Bruce]

In my scanner preferences then I should change inches to pixels?
Then adjust the scanframe by scaling = output
Width X Height eqauls output I can adjust that percentage on the output, so
I should change
it to equal approx 1024by 768
though the file seems sizable?

 

[Bruce]

what format is best, jpg? ttf?

Don't worry about DPI, just worry about P (pixels, which is actual the d
for dots in DPI). You want your picture to be the same number of pixels
as your computer screen/projector. In many cases, that is going to be
1024 x 768. It doesn't matter how big the screen is, so you can ignore I
(inches). With that said, if the picture is 5 inches wide, then scanning
at 205 DPI will get you a picture in the computer that is about 1024
pixels across (5 x 205 = 1025). But if your picture is smaller, you will
want higher DPI to get to the magical 1024. Scanning at higher resolution
will not improve the quality of your picture because if the computer can
only display 1024 x 768, that is all that will be displayed, regardless
of how big (in physical size) the screen is.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

JPG should be good, certainly better than tiff for importing into
PowerPoint.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

If I understand you correctly, you are doing the right thing. Once you have
scanned a picture, you should be able to see the size of the picture in
pixels in any image editing software. In fact, if I point my mouse to a
picture file in Windows XP, it tells me the dimensions. If the dimensions
are approximately 1024 by 768, you should be doing the right thing.

If after saving the file as a JPG, the file size is too large for your
taste, you can rescan (or adjust in your picture editing software), for a
different setting for the size of the picture, but anything smaller than
the resolution of the computer (we are assuming 1024 x 768) will reduce the
quality. This reduction will be particularly noticeable on a large
projector screen.

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/